LAGOS – The September 2020 update of the COVID-19 National Longitudinal Phone Survey (COVID-19 NLPS) carried out by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), in collaboration with the World Bank, to assess the socio-economic impacts of the pandemic on households, reveals that over 40.0% affluent Nigerians are now engaged in agriculture compared with 32.0% in July/August 2018, indicating an increasing share of well-to-do Nigerians participating in the sector.
The report, which also reveals no reprieve for Nigerian households’ incomes and consumption, is a pointer that the pandemic could be inducing a reallocation of labour in the economy in response to the economic shocks and to ensure survival.
The survey, accordingly, maintained the sample of 1,950 respondents but with an improvement in data collection method.
This improvement, according to the report, allows for a more detailed individual-level analysis of working situations, enhancing the verification of trends from previous rounds based only on one respondent, report statistics on overall working situation and unemployment, and assess the differences in labour market characteristics in terms of gender and education. Information relating to employment was gathered from up to six working-age individuals between 15- 64 years, in a household rather than focusing on only the main respondent, mainly older male.
This round of the survey looked at the economic impact of the pandemic from the labour market perspective, focusing on the overall working situation of respondents, including all working age adults, their gender and employment status and the distributional impacts of the COVID-19 crisis.
The analysis of the survey responses indicates that the poor economic conditions observed in previous rounds of the survey remains unabating.
An examination of the working status of the respondents revealed that the proportion of respondents who are working stabilised at 85.0% in September 2020, close to the pre- COVID level of 86.0%.
This improvement is best among the respondents in the rural areas which reached the pre-pandemic levels with a share of 87.0%.
However, the pace of recovery in urban areas has been slower at 78.0% relative to 84.0% before the pandemic.
The improvement in the rural areas during the period could be partly linked to the normal cycles in agriculture as opposed to the devastating impact on sectors such as services and industry, concentrated in the urban areas.
In assessing the overall working situation of all working age adults, the survey focused on people who were working – either for pay or profit – on a subsistence level.
No comments:
Post a Comment